They're Here, They're Queer, & They're Unequivocally Valid

As regular readers will know, I'm passionate about queer YA. There are a few things I've seen online recently surrounding problematic attitudes to queer books and authors, and a few other things I've been thinking about myself. There's discourse that needs commenting on, and areas where I've found I'm somewhat at fault myself.

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Review: Scorpica by G. R. MacAllister (#Ad)

I was sent this proof for free by Titan Books for the purposes of providing an honest review.

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Scorpica by G. R. MacAllister

Published: 22nd February 2022 | Publisher: Titan Books | Source: Publisher
Author’s Website

In an ancient matriarchal world of magic, gods and warriors, the last girl – unbeknownst to the five queendoms – has just been born. As time marches on, the scribes of Bastian find no answers in their history books. The farmers of Sestia sacrifice their crops to the gods. Paxim, the empire of trade and dealings, has nothing to barter but boys and more boys. Arcan magic has no spells to remedy the Drought of Girls. And finally, Scorpica, where every woman is a fighter, their commander, their queen, has no more warriors to train. The lines of these once-great empires soon to die.

After centuries of peace, the ensuing struggle for dominance – and heirs – will bring the five queendoms to the eve of all-out war.

But the mysterious curse is linked to one of the last-born children, an orphaned all-magic girl, who is unaware she has a claim to the Arcan throne... From The StoryGraph.

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The StoryGraph | Goodreads

Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features blood; death and grief; an on-page sex scene (semi-vague); birth; discussion of miscarriage; animal cruelty/death; alcoholism; visceral, gorey descriptions of violence; human sacrifice; infanticide; and execution (magical).

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Review: Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

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Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth

Published: 24th March 2021 | Publisher: The Borough Press | Source: Bought
Emily M. Danforth’s Website

1902, Brookhants School for Girls: students Flo and Clara are madly in love with each other, as well as completely obsessed with The Story of Mary MacLane, the scandalous debut memoir by 19 year old MacLane. A few months later they are found dead in the woods, after a horrific wasp attack, the book lying next to their intertwined bodies. Within five years the school is closed. But not before three more people die on the property, each in a troubling way.

Over a hundred years later, Brookhants opens its doors once more, when a crew of young actresses arrive to film a high-profile movie about the rumoured Brookhants curse. And as past and present become grimly entangled, it’s soon impossible to tell quite where the curse leaves off and Hollywood begins... From The StoryGraph.

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Trigger/Content Warnings: This book features vomit, a fire, use of both soft and hard drugs, alcoholism, mention of suicide, a mental asylum, abuse of a patient, and attempted rape.

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Review: Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh

Blue is the Warmest Color by Julie Maroh - Originally published in French as Le bleu est une couleur chaude, Blue is the Warmest Color is a graphic novel about growing up, falling in love, and coming out. Clementine is a junior in high school who seems average enough: she has friends, family, and the romantic attention of the boys in her school. When her openly gay best friend takes her out on the town, she wanders into a lesbian bar where she encounters Emma: a punkish, confident girl with blue hair. Their attraction is instant and electric, and Clementine find herself in a relationship that will test her friends, parents, and her own ideas about herself and her identity. From Goodreads.

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Review: Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb

Blood of Dragons by Robin Hobb - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

The legendary dragon city of Kelsingra has been discovered. But most of the dragons now lack the strength for the final hazardous river crossing, and the mythical silver wells they need to survive are nowhere to be found. In a desperate attempt to unlock the whereabouts of the wells, the keepers risk "memory walking" _ immersing themselves in the drug-like memories of long-deceased Elderlings. The magic of the city and the final secret it conceals present their only chance of survival, not just for the queen dragon Tintaglia but for Malta and Reyn's infant Elderling son as well.

To make matters worse, time is of the utmost importance. The Duke Of Chalced has dispatched his forces to the Rain Wilds with a compelling mission: slaughter a dragon to stave off his own demise. The tide of history is about to turn on a life-and-death battle that will ultimately decide the dragons; fate. If they win, the regal serpents will rule the world once more. And if they lose, they will vanish from the world forever. From the blurb.

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Review: City of Dragons by Robin Hobb

City of Dragons by Robin Hobb - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

Once dragons ruled the Rain Wilds, tended by privileged human servants known as Elderlings. But now the magnificent creatures have been driven nearly to extinction--and the last of their kind, born weak and deformed, have one last hope of survival: to return to their ancient city of Kelsingra.

After a long and harsh journey, Kelsingra is finally near, on the far side of the toxic Rain Wild River. But the greatest trial still lies ahead for the dragons and their human keepers. Rapidly approaching enemies driven by wickedness, greed, and dark desires covet the treasures that await within the magical city's walls. And to reach their ancestral sanctuary, the dragons must reawaken a power lost to them generations earlier. The dragons must learn to fly. From Goodreads

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Review: Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb

Dragon Haven by Robin Hobb - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the others in the series. Read no further if you're planning on reading this series and don't want it spoilt for you.

The dragon keepers and the fledgling dragons are forging a passage through the uncharted and treacherous waters of the Rain Wild River, supported by the liveship Tarman, its captain, Leftrin, and Alise Finbok, who has escaped her cruel marriage in Bingtown. They are searching for the mythical city of Kelsingra, hoping to find a safe haven away from the society that has rejected them.

When a vial of dragon blood can earn a man enough gold to last a lifetime, there may be some in the party who see the growing dragons as more valuable as body parts than whole and alive. But it is the Rain Wilds themselves - mysterious, unstable and ever perilous - that may provide the deadliest danger, one that will push them all to the very brink of survival. From the blurb.

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